


Name your escape

by Embroiderista



Category: Bordertown (book series)
Genre: Asexual Character, Friendship, Gen, Original Character(s), Shared Universe, Teen Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embroiderista/pseuds/Embroiderista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small glimpse back into the life of Matryona before coming to Bordertown, set in her home town as she and a friend prepare for their joint runaway effort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Name your escape

_'One thousand faces all look the same, they're all so boring, mild, and tame..'_ A soft raspy-voice drifted around inside of the old barn/wood mill as a girl sang under her breath. Knelt over inside of a what was the beginnings of a very small wooden camper, she was sanding away at the floor and cupboard to get them smooth enough to touch. Tucking a curled strand of ash blond hair that had escaped the green bandana holding it out of her face, Matryona glanced up and out one of the circular holes in the wall that were cut into the walls. The light inside had changed as the cut end of the bottom half of a wine bottle had been pushed into one of the holes, throwing green light around inside. "T-told you th..th..those'd work, Stella."

"Okay, okay, so, I owe you a liter of Dr. Pepper for the idea, Matree." The owner of that voice, a willowly young girl with her long straight brunette hair falling down her back replied, as she slotted in a blue bottle to another hole and began caulking it in from outside. "Along with the cube of Dew I'll have to bribe March with for watching Denny for me today."

"You d-d-don't -have- to bribe him, he and Mordred are k-kinda happy to have sssomeone to ..play Goldeneye Death match with." The much stockier girl replied from inside of the camper, kneeling back down to shove and rasp away until the cedar and pine boards inside no longer felt like they'd come from the rejects pile of the sawmill. Which they had, almost every single board on the outside had been obtained that way, and more than 70 percent of the wood inside as well. Matryona grinned, sitting back onto her feet to look around inside of the wagon...no..no. What she and Stella had built together was too damn important to both of them to just be called 'the wagon'. This had been a joint effort of theirs for the past three freaking years of their life. It would be their ticket out. Their ticket out of a town 30 miles from anywhere. Where everyone knew Matryona as 'that poor heartbroken daughter of Saul, who'd died from cancer' and just couldn't interact with people normally. Where Stella's mom stole from her and her brother to get drunk, to scream at them, to blame them for... ..for.. 

The more Matryona thought about it, as she often did, this mattered most of all to Stella, more than it did to her. Stella's home was horrible, the one time she'd been inside of that ratty apartment Matryona had almost thrown up from the smell inside; stale wet cigarettes and beer. It mattered more to her best friend...but they were both going to escape to Bordertown in this camper. That was the goal, to get to Bordertown, it wouldn't be easy or nice there. Then again, was anything ever really easy or nice in this or any world. It was better, because there was magic there, and a neighborhood run by kids like them. And it was far, far away from everything that hurt them here. Getting there was a process, you didn't just walk, there was a method and a sort of...something between science and art. You had to do things exactly right to get there, where the real world bordered with the world of Faery. Cars broke down because of the magic and even if there was a train that regularly went there, the tickets were more than two teenage girls could save up for, and still arrive there with enough to survive. This much she knew..

They couldn't fuck this up. They just couldn't...she bit her bottom lip thinking about it. The camper they'd built with mostly their own two hands needed to carry them all the way there. It would need an indentity as much as they'd need nicknames there.

"...Matryona? You stopped singing...what's up?" They hadn't installed the back window box yet, and Matryona nearly jumped out of her own reverie when Stella poked her head through to check on her. Her friend's grey eyes were just so concerned, it'd only taken Stella a month to figure out that when her friend stopped singing or humming, Something was going on. Capital letter warranted and generally important to both of them. Just because Matryona had a stutter that either left her sounding like Porky Pig or a Very Awkward Robot didn't mean that she wasn't intelligent or thinking. 

Seeing Matryona's face, absolutely honestly considering everything, Stella relaxed a little. Thinking was a thing that was always going on. When it came to big thoughts, there were just so many of them battling around for attention inside of her head that she just couldn't make a sound or communicate verbally. At least this silence wasn't one where it was pain and greif just causing her to shut down. 

Stella didn't ask 'are you okay', and that was everything. Matryona was always hurting emotionally in town. How could she not, when everywhere she turned, there was someone who'd known her dad. Neither of them had known the other's father...both had died before they'd ever even met. When the music or humming stopped, the first thing to come out of her friend's mouth was always 'what was up', because she understood.

Never would Matryona be so grateful to have a friend who actually understood that, and she smiled a little responding. "Was thinking."

Maybe even...there would be more people like Stella in Bordertown, who wouldn't know or judge her on her past. A place where no one knew her.

"About what?" Stella wiped off her fingers of clear silicone caulk onto a rag of an old t-shirt and leaned into the open 'window', patiently waiting.

"...was thinking about names..." Matryona had to work slowly at the words to get them out clearly. 

"We're gonna need new names there...and..."She lifted up a muscular arm to gesture at the ceiling, the walls..the entire camper, "...this needs a name too."

"It does?" Stella's eyebrows knitted close together in momentary confusion. Not that'd take long before she got an explanation, it just took patience.

"...well...just calling it..the camper...has no...soul or magic to it." Matryona expanded, twisting around so she could get her legs out from under her before her own fat ass cut off circulation. "I mean...we're going to need new names there...and having ones that..at least fit well is important. Not naming this..could end up...pfffht."

The hand gesture Matryona made with that noise, a wriggling of fingers on one hand as she rose it up to the ceiling from the floor, that was a sign, clear enough that doing this wrong could seriously fuck them both up. Her friend snorted, grinning and covered her mouth. "What, like Wanderlust?"

"Heck no!" Matryona gave Stella a mildly worried look, pulling her head in between her shoulders. "C-c-could make us end up wandering the n n nn n-Never Never til we'd old and grey!"

"Then what?"

"...dunno. Maybe...maybe look up the n-names of houses or homes tha tha that travel?" It was a suggestion and only the first one to come to mind. "There's gotta be some."

"What about 'gypsy wagon'?" Stella suggested, pulling back out to go back to placing in their bottle 'windows' along the sides of the camper. "Gypsies wander and live in wagons don't they?"

"...yeah..but they d-don't call em wagons, do they?" Matryona shook out the sanding block and it's dust outside of the camper for a moment. "...they even have sssspecial b-breeds of horses.. that pull their homes around. Vanners."

Except Gypsies didn't like being called that name either...they wanted to be called the Romany. Maybe calling them Gypsies was a lot like calling an african american person a Nigger. That'd be bad really. This would require some research during study hall. "I'll look up some stuff.."

_Pardon me sir, can I ask you a favor? Make me a cowboy like my nextdoor neighbor..  
Pardon me sir can I use your eraser, to remove my brain of unconventional nature..._

"Well you pick it out...you're better at finding stuff like that anyways, and I've gotta retake that stupid algebra test tomorrow anyways." Stella declared, shaking her head. Sometimes, she thought that Matryona worried far too much for her own good. It was like she was never, ever really comfortable sometimes, and no one not even Matryona herself knew who'd stuck the horsechestnut down the back of her shirt. Metaphorically speaking. Anyways, they only had this afternoon and evening off together this week. They had to make the most of what time there was to work together on this.

"H'kay...if I f f ffind something..I'll tell you at work, okay?"

It was three days before she found anything, there was still homework to get done for the both of them. As distasteful as it was, both of the girls knew they needed to make sure their grades stayed up at their usual rate. It was a form of insurance that Matryona had thought of, after having read more and more and thought so much about it early on. If either of their grades dropped down, someone from either of their families might catch onto their plan. Or one of the teachers might get concerned and make a call. You couldn't trust some people all that much, not for them to leave you be. Maybe Matryona's mother might stop her, but with two other kids, both active boys, the woman was just grateful. Her eldest awkward daughter at least left the house now, wasn't doing drugs, and had two part-time jobs. Even if they weren't great jobs, one being the local paper route that they'd switch off on doing. 

The dishwashing job paid better anyways, per hour instead of a crummy per house rate, but money was money. So that Sunday Stella had the breakfast shift, and Matryona's afternoon shift overlapped for a few hours. A few hours to talk while working, before Stella clocked out and had to go home. The sound of the mountain bike and chains clattering outside made the willowly girl look up only a moment from the basin of soapy, greasy water as she scrubbed out the buffet pans from breakfast. 

The heavy thunk of Matryona's feet racing in over the old wooden stairs soon followed as the heavy set girl bolted with more speed and agility that someone like her had any right to have, past the preparation tables, pizza oven and hot line. She was in and out of the dining room and the time card machine that lay next to the waiter's station before pulling on a clean apron and soon was at her friend's side attacking the grease and grime with an almost feral, delighted grin. It was familiar, and it meant that she'd succeeded at something, in her own opinion, a rare enough thing.

"Oh tell me already...you're going to scare the coldside cooks with a grin like that." Stella teased gently as her friend lifted up more pans and lunged into scrubbing off the burnt on meat in one pan with steel wool. "You found something."

"Yeeeeaaaauuuuhp." Matryona's green eyes were bright and delighted, as she snuck a look to the side. "I'll t..-t..when we getta break."

"You just like making me have to wait." Stella stuck out her tongue and heaved the pan she'd finished into the plastic tray for the industrial dishwashing machine. Then again, maybe she didn't have to wait..if she could... "Or can I take a guess?"

The innocently beaming grin was more shit-eating than anything else on Matryona's round face, but that was enough of an answer just right there. There might be work to do, but there was nothing about answering with body language that would annoy or distract their coworkers. Then she looked away, to focus on the work at hand as Stella took what she got the worst off of, and put it into the racks.

Pursing her lips a moment, Stella considered as she slid the lid down on the dishwasher, thinking. "Is it a boy?"

"Pbbbht."

"Is it a girl?" She laughed as Matryona raspberried her again and flicked some water at her in consternation. As far as either of them had know, the heavier girl had never shown an interest in anyone beyond someone to have a conversation with. It was just a way of getting a mild rise out of her friend. "Kidding, kidding! ..okay...is it living? Inanimate?"

There was a headshake with a faint raspberry, followed by a little nod and a grin.

"Is it information or material?" Stella asked, getting the response of one finger pointing up at the ceiling. So the first one, narrowed down the field again. "Aha....did you find something in the research?"

Matryona supressed a cackle and faced Stella flashing both of her hands open and closed rapidly for a few minutes, dingdingding there was a winner! Stella laughed, honestly her friend was so excited just to be able to communicate without having to speak sometimes. "So what do they call their wagons?"

"Vardo.... ...how d-d-does that sound?"

"Varrrrdo...vardo.." She had to roll that word around in her mouth for a little bit before she caught the way that Matryona suddenly was completely absorbed in the sink. Their boss..well not their boss, but the guy who was the son of the man who signed their paychecks was coming. Both girls had their heads tucked into the work until Jessup had passed, he just looked for reasons to give either of them crap for talking on the job sometimes. It was just easier to be quiet until the jerk passed.

When he was gone, Matryona just looked at Stella with an eyebrow raised expectantly, hoping for an answer. It was a word different from whatever had been in her mind for their planned escape. Stella whispered quietly as the dishes came out steaming hot from the washer in their racks, before she had to put them away. "It really means travelling home?"

Matryona nodded emphatically in response to that, as near as she could tell that's what a Vardo was.

"Then it's perfect."

_Small town trap with dreams of breaking out Inspire me cause if youdon't I think I'll dissipate to dust the Liar in me says something's gonna happen soon because it must..._


End file.
